Support for Perinatal Loss Providers

A Heartfelt Thank You - First, on behalf of Three Little Birds, our loss families, and our community partners, we extend a heartfelt thank you to the perinatal providers—physicians, midwives, nurses, social workers, sonographers, lactation consultants, chaplains, and mental health professionals—who walk alongside families through loss.

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Thank you…

• For being willing to listen and learn from the families you care for.

• For advocating for families in their most vulnerable moments.

• For being sensitive to families’ fragile emotional states.

• For showering families with compassion and kindness.

• For remembering the risks of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following perinatal loss.

• For honoring, respecting, and validating every child’s life and passing.

 

Your presence, compassion, and advocacy make a profound difference.

 

Bridging the Gap Between Families and Providers

Since our founding, we have been privileged to collaborate with many providers who support families at the time of loss. What we’ve learned is that while most providers want to do what is right for families, many feel helpless or underprepared due to limited training and inconsistent guidance from employers.

To address this, we expanded our Bedside Bereavement Program to include providers as well as families. Through our Perinatal Bereavement Training Program, volunteer bereavement doulas—many of whom are loss parents themselves—go bedside to bridge the gap, offering education, empathy, and empowerment. To date, more than 240 professionals and advocates have been trained.

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When Three Little Birds is at the bedside, we can:

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• Ensure consistent best practices across staff.

• Dispatch trained volunteers to assist with memory-making, bonding, and photography.

• Retouch photos taken by staff or families when volunteers are unavailable.

 

Our goal is simple: to provide the best possible experience on the worst day of a family’s life, while also being a familiar, trusted face when they return for peer-led postpartum support.

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Virtual Training Relaunch

In 2024, we relaunched our Perinatal Bereavement Training Program in a fully virtual format, updated with new resources. This program incorporates stories and strategies from doulas who have supported more than 400 families. Topics include:

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• Holding space with compassion and presence.

• Effective communication to guide families through the fog of grief.

• Cultural competency and honoring diverse backgrounds.

• Boundary setting and provider self-care.

 

Self-Care for Providers

We recognize the emotional toll of perinatal loss care. Too often, providers become the “only” person a hospital relies on, leading to burnout or even career changes. Yet with statistics showing that up to 25% of pregnancies may end in loss, all families deserve consistent, informed, and empathetic care—regardless of staffing. Our training reduces this burden by: 

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• Equipping entire teams with knowledge and confidence.

• Preventing burnout by distributing responsibility more evenly.

• Empowering providers to support families without carrying the weight alone.

 

Burnout is real, even for the most experienced professionals. That’s why our program emphasizes sustainable self-care practices: finding physical, emotional, and spiritual outlets; maintaining healthy boundaries; and learning tools to manage compassion fatigue. Partnering with Three Little Birds—or an advocacy group like ours—ensures both families and providers are supported.

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Recommended Reading for Providers

• Companioning at a Time of Perinatal Loss: A Guide for Nurses, Physicians, Social Workers and Chaplains – Jane Huetes, RN & Marcia Meyer Jenkins

• Living Life in Balance – Abdullah Bulad

• Being a Wounded Healer: How to Heal Ourselves while Healing Others

• Healing Your Grieving Heart After Stillbirth – Alan Wolfelt, Ph.D

• Overcoming Compassion Fatigue – Charles R. Figley

• The Role of Compassion in Perinatal Bereavement Care – Dr. Joann O’Leary

• Who Helps the Helper? Prioritizing Self-Care for Perinatal Professionals

 

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